Tag Archives: children

I’m struggling to keep up with my kids in the French-language stakes. It’s simple really – their brains are young, mine is old. So while they are picking it up easily, I’m trying everything I can to ram it home. It’s going in. But It’s a slow process.

Those eight hours a day they spend at French school is really giving them an edge too.

So in an effort to boost my vocabulary, and possibly make some new French friends, last night I decided to head along to the local English speaking club – a group set up for French people who want to learn, or practise, speaking English.

I was met by 6 friendly French people, who all seemed very pleased that they had an authentic Englishman living in their village. They were all retirees, with the exception of the town Chemist. We decided – as me is already quite not bad at English talking – that I would speak French to them, and they would speak English to me.

‘But you must correct us!’ they told me ‘And we will correct you!’.

As it was my first time meeting them I didn’t want to ruffle their feathers, so kept any correcting of their speech to a minimum. They, however, had no qualms whatsoever about correcting mine.

This put my French to the test as, for the next one hour and 45 minutes they bombarded me with questions. It would have been shorter, but the amount of pauses I had to make in my responses, as I incorporated their corrections, dragged it out. They even corrected me when I told them that my 4-year-old daughter is already correcting my French – because I said the word ‘correct’ incorrectly.

I pointed out to them that this was like some kind of interview. They agreed with me but then corrected me and said no, it was more like an interrogation.

There were many funny little exchanges throughout the evening, as we discussed everything from Ed Sheeran’s singing, and his engagement, to how to make a Yorkshire Pudding, and why they were created in the first place.

My favourite part of the evening was when they were discussing their children. Some of them were clearly put out that they didn’t see their offspring often enough. The chemist piped up at this point, saying that her parents see her at least once a month. ‘Well they have to’ she said ‘I give them all their pills’.

Now that my headache has subsided I’m already looking forward to next Monday’s session.

The following is an example of my daughter’s dialogue, spoken over the first ten minutes of pretty much any film that you could think of, that is suitable for children aged four. It doesn’t matter what genre it is, it will always follow the same pattern…

My daughter is going through a phase. It’s just the age, people tell me. She’ll grow out of it. Thing is, I’m not so sure it is just a phase. I think it’s all part of a much grander, devious scheme. You’d think I’m talking about some evil, megalomaniac genius here with what I’m about to say. And to that I’d say ‘Oh, so you’ve met my daughter then?’.

So what’s the phase? Collecting small-to-medium sized stones, filling her pockets with them and then ‘redistributing’ them in useful areas such as car seats, cups, your pockets and in bed (s). What I think her actual plan is: to dig a tunnel with her fellow nursery pupils, so that they can escape from nursery whenever they want.

This occurred to me the other day, after I’d collected her from her maternelle (the French name for nursery) and picked up her coat, as she got out of the car. This is heavy, I thought to myself. I soon realised why, as stone after stone fell out, forming piles on the car park floor. You may think I’m exaggerating by describing it like this, but it looked liked someone was staging a mock-recreation of The Blair Witch’s burial mounds. And that was after a good handful had been left in her seat as well. She just grinned at me, in a slightly sinister all-I’m-lacking-is-a-white-cat-to-stroke kind of way.

Blofeld ain’t got nothing on her, you wait and see.

The neighbour saw me, said hello and looked at what I was doing. I explained the stone-fetish. ‘It’s just the age’ she said to me.

Except she didn’t say it like that – in English – because she’s French.

So a few stones, OK, I get that. But these quantities? It’s been over a week since those stones were left on our – relatively busy – car park and they’re still there, they have strength in numbers you see. Either that or people actually think if they move them the Blair Witch of the car park will get them and…I don’t know, scratch their cars? Adjust their seats? Tune their radio-stations to a channel that plays Clean Bandit’s Symphony on an endless loop?

I can just picture her though, sat in a chair while drinks are brought to her, hunched over her tunnel-plans, gaining favour amongst her peers with her scheme to tunnel to the playground. All the while hiding this in plain sight by having all the kids ‘redistribute’ the displaced stones in useful areas that they will blend in to with ease, such as baths, stairs, inside shoes and underneath car brake pedals. She’ll egg them on with promises of slides, sunshine, fun and games and no adults around.

Today I had a good time as I went to the library and I read a good book called ‘T’choupi jardine’ and it was good because I understood every word and I felt that was a massive achievement even though my kids and partner laughed at me and the librarian looked at me like I was ‘different’.

I love T’choupi because he spends time with his daddy and they have fun and it is a great book and he helped his daddy in the garden and then they planted seeds and T’choupi thought his flowers would grow but daddy said ‘No you must wait T’Choupi’ which chuffed T’choupi off a bit but that’s kids for you. And daddy asked T’choupi to go in the house but T’choupi wouldn’t because kids never do what you tell them and he wanted to stay outside and watch his flowers grow but they didn’t because it was not time for them to grow yet which he would know if he had listened to his daddy.

I like T’choupi, and I am a big boy now because I read the whole thing and I understood it all. OK, page 7 was a bit tricky but apart from that It was great and then I had a lollipop.

My son is very, very creative. He’s seldom seen without a colouring pencil in his hand, drawing up a storm. He’s got a great unique style too, something I don’t have, but can recognise. I like to think I’m OK at writing, but he blows me out of the water when it comes to drawing. Lately he has been turning his attention to his large collection of Lego, and the results have been fantastic. I should add that he didn’t use any pictures, guides or anything like that, they all came from memory and imagination…

His Optimus Prime robot, the body is the weak part – because I built it! – the face is amazing, he’s watched a couple of the films but that’s it, which makes this all the more incredible to me as he doesn’t own one single Transformer toy.

Batman Bobble head with a, in his own words, ‘tapered back’. I was so surprised that he knew the word ‘tapered’ that I didn’t immediately appreciate the craft that had gone into this.

A Hospital waiting-room for his figures.

They went through a phase of really liking all things Emoji, after watching that terrible, terrible film several times. This is ‘Laughy Tongue’ Emoji.

A great little vehicle, if there’s a sequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, and they need some tips on car designs, they know where to come.

I think this is probably my favourite, we started working on this together, as he wanted to make a Lego version of Midna, a character from the Zelda series of games (Twilight Princess to be specific). I gave up as I just couldn’t figure out how to do it, and went for a coffee. I returned and he’d created this – a fantastic interpretation by anyone’s standards. I love the hat, the eye, the colours…everything just works. And he’s only 6-and-a-half years old.

The two babies came downstairs one day to discover a very big surprise was waiting for them – their very own bath!

They were very, very happy about this and got in straight away!

They were pleased to be in the bath as they had been wearing the same clothes for over a year, and so they absolutely reeked.

They also wore those clothes in the bath, because that’s what you do in a bath isn’t it.

‘This is nice’ said Winky-Eye Baby, as he pretend-sploshed water all over his (her?) clothes.

‘Yes it is’ replied Onesie Baby ‘It’s about bloody time too. I thought my clothes were going to be classed as a biohazard if I let them get any dirtier’.

‘You do know there isn’t actually any water?’ said Winky-Eye Baby, with a worried frown on his (her?) face ‘It’s all just pretend. Don’t tell me you’ve been at the bleach again?!’.

‘It’s real if you wish hard enough’ said Onesie Baby.

‘Well, why don’t you shit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one fills up first’ replied Winky-Eye Baby.

After their bath the two babies had a lovely game of ‘High Fly’, a fun game which involved them being hurled as fast as they could be at walls and doors, by their boisterous Mummy. She was a very loving Mummy, but she loved in a quite violent way, and so if the two babies were real she would probably be doing about 25 years-to-life in prison for infanticide.

Though if they were real it would probably raise more questions about how a three-and-a-half year-old could have babies.

After their game the two babies decided to have another bath, but were shocked to discover it had been stolen!

Who stole it?

‘It’s that fucking cat!’ said Winky-Eye Baby ‘As if it’s not bad enough that we get used as a teeth and claw sharpener by that thing, now we will have to clean out its hairs before we get back in!’

‘And we might catch toxoplasmosis’ he (she?) added.

‘What’s toxoplasmosis?’ Onesie Baby asked.

‘Its that disease from cat shit that killed Tommy in Trainspotting’ replied Winky-Eye Baby ‘Mind you he was a junkie with AIDS, so we should be alright’

‘Plus we’ve got no central nervous system’ added Onesie Baby.

The cat did look awfully comfortable though, and the two babies worried they would never get their bath back, but just then he woke up!

‘Oh I do hope he doesn’t bite my head again’ said Winky-Eye Baby

‘That’s not the worst thing they do’ replied Onesie Baby ‘I’ve heard when they get older they hump you’

‘No I think that’s dogs’ countered Winky-Eye Baby ‘Plus he’s having his bollocks off next month so it shouldn’t be an issue’.

Just then Mummy arrived, and the two babies had beaming smiles on their faces at the prospect of getting their bath back. Or they would have done if in fact they could smile, and weren’t just moulded lumps of rubber.

December 2011, I’m flicking my WiiMote around in order to make my onscreen character – Link – defeat Ganon. The game I’m playing is Skyward Sword the swansong for the Wii console, and a fitting game for me to play to completion. The game concerns Link’s ongoing efforts to save the land of Hyrule from the main bad-guy, the aforementioned Ganon.

My almost-one-year-old son has been avidly watching me play it, which is fine as it’s a fairly cartoony, non-violent game (well, there are monsters to kill, but they aren’t gruesome kills, and there’s no blood). His big eyes follow my every move and, when I nip for a cup of tea, or to the toilet, I often return to find him waving the WiiMote at the screen. It’s a great moment when I finally defeat Ganon and give my son a cuddle, knowing I’ll never forget this moment.

Jump forward to 2017, my son is now 6-and-a-half and has his own gaming system, the Wii’s successor, the Nintendo WiiU. I say it’s his, but I bought it for myself, so he’s effectively stolen it from me, in that way that kids do. I don’t mind though, because I’ve bought myself a Nintendo Switch (which he will inevitably steal from me one day down the line). The one thing these two systems have in common? Zelda: Breath Of The Wild.

In a move that apes Nintendo’s previous one, this game is the swansong for the WiiU, but also a launch title for the Switch. It’s also an incredibly bonding experience for me and my son. He’s now of an age where he can play these games and understand most – if not all – of the game mechanics. Some of it is lost on him – the reams and reams of text detailing the various quests clearly go over his head. But that’s where daddy comes in.

As I am playing the game at the same time as he is – and am further ahead too – I’m always on hand to offer him guidance when he gets stuck. He talks about it nonstop, from the moment he wakes up, till the moment he goes to bed. I personally have no problem whatsoever with this, but it can wear on his mother’s nerves, as he is effectively speaking a different language to her when he talks about the game.

It’s incredible how far he’s come since those days back in 2011, when he was merely an observer. Indeed he’s even teaching me a few tricks; it’s like having a mini co-pilot. These games aren’t released very often, so I’m savouring it, trying to make it last. I can see he wants to rush through though, but thankfully his lack of grasping the finer details means that I can slow the pace down.

His time on the game is monitored (I fully believe that he would play it from sun-up to sun-down if he could) and it’s taken away if he misbehaves. I’m a parent who believes that gaming, in reasonable doses, is not only a positive thing for kids but beneficial too. Gaming is much more interactive than just watching a film, or a TV series. It also enhances hand-eye coordination and improves fine-motor skills.

I love the discussions we have, the thousand-and-one questions he hurls at me every day, the many, many drawings he does, of the many, many characters in the game. He’s even created pictorial books – yes, books! – detailing the adventures he’s undertaken in the game. When he himself runs out of steam, or finds a certain character a bit too difficult to draw, then he calls on me to aid him (I’m OK at tracing but have no real natural talent, my son does though, he has a certain style that I think is fantastic).

It’s a fantastic thing to see, his big eyes shining with awe as he talks about his latest run-in with one of the game’s baddies. The many fist-bumps we share with each other when one, or the other, solves a riddle, or defeats a particularly troublesome baddie. He’s got a lot of patience too, for a six-year-old, I’ve yet to see him get angry. Whenever he gets defeated – even if it’s for the 20th time – he simply dusts himself off (metaphorically speaking) and gets stuck right back in.

It won’t be long though before we meet Ganon, and defeat him, bringing this fantastic game to an end. This time however we won’t only do it together, but also together: he on his system and me on mine.

Then it will just be a case of waiting another 5 years or so for the next instalment…then I’m fairly sure he will be the master, and I the apprentice…

My daughter looks at me as I step out into the glorious sunshine, I’m eating a lemon-sorbet ice-pop, just the thing to cool me down on a day as hot as this. ‘You’ve had two of those today’ she says to me ‘Why have you had two of those today?’. It’s like this all the time at the moment, my daughter has turned into a food policeman/woman/child (delete as appropriate). You can’t put anything in your mouth – nothing edible anyway – without her noticing and commenting on it.

I was making her some food the other day, one of her favourites, sausage and chips, and I – as is customary for me – took a small piece of the second sausage, for what I refer to as ‘Daddy Tax’. This is a tax I levy on all foodstuffs (except cauliflower, bleurgh!) that I prepare for my kids, just a little off the top to keep me sweet (It is not, I repeat NOT ‘protection money’ in the form of food). She noticed straight away.

‘Why did you eat a piece of my sausage’ she said, her dark eyes fixed on me from beneath a furrowed brow. Was she in the room when I ate that piece of sausage? I don’t think she was, and as I break her sausages up into pieces, there shouldn’t really have been any way for her to notice. But notice she did.

I suspect that at night, when everyone else is asleep, she creeps downstairs and takes inventory of all the food in the house. She notes down all the different foodstuffs, the different quantities and then, if in her eyes you go over your allotted quota for the day, that’s when the interrogation, the questions, the accusations…that’s when it all starts.

Or I could just be being paranoid.

She’s always there, whenever food is being prepared, and if she isn’t, she magically will be as soon as she smells or hears it. It’s like one of those horror movie cliches, you know when you open the fridge-door, and then close it and there’s a mass murderer waiting, where previously there was nothing. Except it’s not a mass murderer, it’s a two-and-a-half foot tall munchkin who wants to know what you are doing with that pack of ham. And if you don’t respond then the consequences could be as dire as in the horror movie.

That’s if you equate being stared at for ten minutes, with the phrase ‘Can I have some’ repeated 278 times, to as bad as being stabbed to death by Michael Myers/Jason Voorhees/Freddy Krueger (delete as applicable).

She can also hear packets of crisps being opened from up to a mile away. I once opened a packet, downstairs in our house. I was alone, everybody else was off doing something else (together I should add, we don’t let our three and six year old wander the village on their own – we wouldn’t put the villagers through that). I hadn’t put one crisp in my mouth when I turned to see a pair of dark eyes staring at me through the patio windows.

They were my favourite flavour too.

I’m in the house on my own now too, and I think I might have an ice-cream. I’ll be ok though, she’s at nursery today. There’s no chance she can get me. Is there?

Ever had one of those ideas that you immediately regret? Like taking a moped out for a spin in Greece, without taking out insurance? Or maybe accepting that drink from the slightly too friendly guy, that keeps touching you? Or maybe going along to that ‘it’s not timeshare’ presentation, with the promise of a free trip on a glass-bottomed-boat afterwards?

Or how about deciding to man a stall at a French brocante, and taking along your three and six year-old children? Doomed to failure that idea, a non-starter if you are seeking a peaceful, profitable day.

Regrets aside this is what brought us to the huge brocante in our home village of Aubigny sur Nere today. I don’t use the term ‘huge’ lightly either. The brocante dominates the place to such a degree that traffic has been shut down throughout and there’s nary an alley, or sidewalk, that doesn’t have somebody selling something.

It’s not long before the kids start to act up (2 micro-seconds to be exact) and so, after the requisite amount of paternal caring (3 micro-seconds to be exact) I bugger off and leave the kids with their mother, Grandma and Grandad, and take a look at what there is for sale.

There are lots, and lots, and lots of interesting items, the usual medley of guns, knives, rusty farm tools, knives, dead animals and more knives. The stand-outs for me, today, are the following seven deadly deals…

MUSCULAR GNOME-IN-A-THONG

This combines two of my least favourite things: gnomes and (male) thongs. What’s going on here? What message are you sending out if you buy this and display it on your lawn? If I bought this, the Peter Stringfellow of garden ornaments, and put it outside I wonder how long it would be before the gendarme came knocking at my door?

Also note his accessory: alarmingly phallic mushroom – I don’t think the plan here is for him to get his fishing rod out. Well, obviously that depends on your interpretation of the term ‘fishing rod’.

I think the plan is actually for the placement of these in the garden to attract ladies inside, with the suggestion of virility, muscularity and…well, a great big mushroom. The only slight hitch will come if it actually works, and the ladies knock on the door only to find a 9-stone-man with a stoop and halitosis…

STATUS AT END OF BROCANTE: UNSOLD

GOAT/COW/SOMETHING’S FEET LAMP

Yes, yes so I’m clearly not an expert on what foot comes off what animal as the title of this segment demonstrates. I don’t know about you, but my first thought if I cut off this animals legs and started wondering what to do with them, would probably not be ‘Hmm, you know what? They’d make a lovely lamp’. What the hell do you buy to complement this? A buffalo leg coffee table? Or maybe a set of four deer-leg coat-hooks (they actually had those, in case you wondered what happened to Bambi)?

If nothing it’s definitely a conversation starter. A conversation that would probably start with ‘What the f*ck’s that?’

STATUS AT END OF BROCANTE: UNSOLD

NOT THE JOY OF SEX BOOK

My closest encounter with flagellation came in 2006, when I sat through the interminable The Da Vinci Code. You remember? That albino monk kept whacking himself when he thought he’d done something wrong. Or he might have enjoyed it, I forget which one.

Anyway, I didn’t realise it was actually a thing, or that there were even guide books for it. Needless to say, this was as close as I got, I really didn’t want to bump into one of my children’s teachers whilst ‘browsing’ Kinky Flagellations…t hat could open up a whole new world of problems. It would certainly make parent/teacher evenings interesting.

It’s nice that the producers of this book have thoughtfully included a warning that it is ‘not suitable for minors’. I would have thought the image on the front of the book, of the woman wearing S+M gear, and exposing her breasts would have done that job, but maybe that’s just me.

STATUS AT END OF BROCANTE: UNSOLD

JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING DOG-LAMP

Fans of the seminal 1982 classic John Carpenter’s The Thing (to give it its full title) will recall the standout scene early on, where the husky dog that has seemed to be normal reveals its true colours, goes bat-shit crazy, and starts melting and attempting to assimilate the other dogs. If you could turn those melted dogs into a lamp, it would look like this.

At least, I think it’s supposed to be a lamp. My French isn’t yet at the stage where I can confidently pose the question ‘What the bloody hell is that supposed to be? Is it a lamp?’, but I’m getting there. Where does the light bulb go? In its mouth? Or are you supposed to finish that part off yourself? The mind boggles.

This…thing, won the award for the day of being, in my partner’s words, ‘The scariest thing I have ever seen’. It’s so like The Thing, in so many ways that I’m slightly regretting not buying it now. It looks like something trying (and failing) to look like something else, part-dog, part-lamp: all-horror. That being said, If I had have bought it I’m fairly certain that the kids would never enter the room that it was in…bah! Yet another reason to have purchased it!

STATUS AT END OF BROCANTE: UNSOLD

An Obviously Stolen Road Sign

This lady had some balls on her I can tell you. Stood there, in plain view of any passing gendarmes – of which there were many – with a stolen road sign. Just consider, for a moment, the lost motorist, adrift betwixt Gracay and Vatan. ‘How far is it now my love?’ grey-haired Elsa says to her beau, Francois ‘I don’t know’ he says, taking off his glasses and peering at the mound of upturned soil ‘Someone’s stolen the f*cking road sign’.

As uninteresting as the actual item is, it still garnered inquisitive looks and questions from passers-by. My partner heard her setting her stall out, price-wise, when she responded to a query on the matter with ‘let’s look at 350 euros, then we can start to talk about it’.

She also tried, unsuccessfully, to photo-bomb my picture when I took it. Like I said, she had balls.

STATUS AT END OF BROCANTE: NOT SURE, SHE DROVE OFF

COCK-SWITCH LAMP

‘Eh!’ said the lady who owned this ‘tasteful’ item when I took its picture ‘You take a photo of it, you buy it!’. I just hid behind my foreignness, gave her the thumbs up, and said it was ‘Tres bon!’.

When what I actually wanted to say was ‘How do you turn it on? By flicking the penis?’.

STATUS AT END OF BROCANTE: UNSOLD

GORILLA-MECHANIC WITH BOTTLE OF WINE/OIL & ADJUSTABLE WRENCH THING

So I’ve no idea on this one. What’s the purpose, the point, or the message? The bottle clearly used to be a bottle of wine, but now it’s been re-covered to look like a bottle of oil. With nuts at the bottom of it.

The wrench is touching the bottle, so is it implying that the two go together? Mechanics use oil and wrenches a lot?

What’s the gorilla got to do with anything? He looks like he wandered in from another set. Oh, and if you can’t see he’s also eating a banana. Is this the view of mechanics in France, that they are apes?

Maybe it’s an actual depiction of a ‘Monkey-wrench’ or…you know what? I’m giving up on this one. I personally think it’s someone’s art degree effort, probably means something really deep and cool. For me it just looked really weird, and faintly insulting for some reason.

We are just about to set off out for a picnic, an impromptu plan suggested by yours truly, on what is a gloriously sunny day. One of the added benefits of living where we do in France, is that we are a stone’s throw away from some truly lovely parks, and a short five-minute drive from my partner’s work; meaning we can pick her up on the way.

Everything’s ready to go, sandwiches are made and packed; drinks are ready; desserts are also in the bag for the kids (not for myself and my partner though as I think – incorrectly as the black looks I later receive attest – we don’t need them).

Yes everything’s ready to go, the kids don’t even need to go to the toilet – I know this as I have asked them the requisite 58 times. Only ask 57 times and you are treading on thin ice*.

So, I think to myself, as I don my footwear, if everything’s ready to go why is my daughter crying?

My son is running around her in a circle, so I assume this is what’s making her cry. I tell him to stop, but she keeps crying and makes a grab for his shoes. Has he stolen something from her and hidden it in his shoes?

You might laugh at that, but these two would give airport-security a run for their money when it comes to finding new and interesting places to hide things. I know what that implies, and I stand by it. You DO NOT want to know where I’ve found marbles…and then promptly thrown said marble away.

I had to, it was a health and safety issue.

Anyway, back to my teary-eyed daughter and I finally, somewhat disbelievingly, discover what she’s crying about. One of the velcro grips on my son’s shoes is not lined up correctly.

Just re-read that sentence to yourself.

They aren’t her shoes, they are someones else’s. They are on the correct feet, but one, ONE of the velcro straps is slightly, SLIGHTLY ‘askew’.

She often mothers him, I’ve mentioned this in the past, so that’s not much of a surprise. This however, is a new level of fastidiousness.

She loves everything in her life to be ‘just so’, her hair has to be a certain way, the clothes have to match up, things in her room have to be lined up correctly. I tidied the books on her floor up the other week while I was mopping, as they seemed to be messy, this led to a three-hour interrogation on why I had done it, and why I shouldn’t do it again.

Did I mention she’s only three?

I tentatively reach over to my son’s shoe and correctly line-up the velcro grip. He couldn’t care less; if I took them off and replaced them with odd shoes – odd girl’s shoes – he’d quite happily carry on regardless. I think I could offer him hollowed-out racoons and he’s shove them on each foot. He’s a free spirit.

The effect on my daughter, however, is immediate and obvious. The tears stop rolling down her face, as if someone’s turned off a tap, her attitude changes completely and we head out the door.

She’s three.

Three.

What is going to happen at puberty????

*As it turns out 58 times IS NOT the charm. Not only did my son need a wee at the park he also had to go ‘number two’, which I, in a very civic-minded-manner, had to scoop up and carry. I used baby-wipes and held it like the world’s smelliest, warmest bomb. I do not wish to repeat that experience.